Our Fitness Blog

Who's In Your Corner?

When it comes to information you are seeking, where are you getting your information? This is a very important question that we all need to ask ourselves. Whether it's business, finances, health and fitness, nutrition, etc., we want information from the true experts in those fields. That is of course if we are looking to become successful in a certain field. As we all know, there are plenty of individuals ready and willing to give their opinion. And these are just that, opinions, which are far from expert advice.

Let’s look at the definition of the word, Expert: ‘A person who has a comprehensive and authoritative knowledge of, or skill in, a particular area’

The late Lou Tice talked about 3 qualities that true experts possess and it reads something like this:

The individual is extremely well educated and knowledgeable in their field.

The individual is a champion themselves in their field.

The individual has coached many others to become champions in their field.

Take a look at those three components above and I think you will see that Lou Tice nailed it when defining true experts. After reading these three expert components above, we can now quickly understand how a lot of the information we may be receiving is far from expert advice.

For example, individuals will say things like, "Rick, on social media, I read about this detox diet that an individual did; I think this will help me lose weight." Well, we have to understand who is providing this information and go through Lou Tice’s 3 points above and see if you can check mark each box. If you cannot check each box, I would be hesitant on calling it expert advice that you want to follow.

I've heard individuals say things such as, "I read someone's response to a social media post about this new, super-fast weight loss diet and it really worked for them; I am going to start following this new diet, it sounds great!" Ahhh, ok, let us all know how that works out for you. Once again, I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is far from expert advice and this would just simply fall under the category of "one's opinion."

For example, taking health, fitness, workout and nutrition advice from someone overweight, obese and not fit. In no way would this fall under the category of expert advice based on Lou Tice’s definition, would it? Mark Cuban made a great statement that went something like this; ‘don’t ever take advice from someone where your results/outcome will have no impact/effect on the person giving the advice.’ Think about this statement, this is very powerful. Not only are the opinions of non-experts not expert advice, but also your outcome has no impact on them. There is no skin in the game for those throwing out their opinions.

If you are receiving true expert advice, there is a lot of skin in the game for the expert. And your outcome and results do matter. The expert wants you to succeed. Think about any true expert advice you have received whether it was medical, business, financial, health & fitness, etc.; it was expert advice with your goals and needs in mind. Much different of course from one’s opinion.

There are plenty of invividuals' ready and willing to give you their opinion; but there are very few true experts (as defined by Lou Tice). If you are looking for expert advice in a certain field, seek out the true experts, not individuals’ opinions. When that individual is extremely well educated and knowledgeable in their field, a true champion themselves in their field and they have coached many others to greatness to become champions, then we can feel very comfortable with that person’s advice and that is who we want in our corner.